Search results for ""pccs books""

Part of the PCCS Books `Our Encounters With...' Series, this is a powerful testimony of the destructive, sometimes fatal, effects of stalking on its victims. With an introduction by the author Peter James, himself a victim of stalking, the book foregrounds the experiences of those who have been (and are still being) stalked. It offers a unique insight into the commonalities of experience and a platform where people who have, in many cases, been driven into silence and anonymity are able to write openly and angrily about their battles to stay sane and re-establish a life free from their persecutor. The book is in three main sections: Professional and third sector; the police and the courts; first-person accounts of the experience of being stalked, its impact on the victims and those around them. The book concludes with a summary of the main themes and conclusions, a reflection on some of the editorial conversations between the editors of the book, and a list of helpful resources and information.

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This latest addition to the PCCS Books Primers in Counselling series offers a concise introduction to rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT). Devised by Albert Ellis in 1955, and subsequently further developed and refined, REBT is based on the principle that ‘People are not disturbed by the adversities that they face. Rather, they disturb themselves about these adversities by the rigid and extreme attitudes that they hold towards them.’ REBT therapists seek to help their clients identify, examine and change the rigid and extreme attitudes that underpin their emotional problems, and to develop alternative flexible and non-extreme alternative attitudes. As therapy proceeds, the therapist will help the client to take increasing responsibility for using these methods, with the ultimate aim that they become their own therapist. The book takes the reader step by step through these processes, culminating in a detailed transcription of a single session of REBT. It ends with an outline of research on the effectiveness of REBT. It also includes helpful forms for use with clients and links to further resources.

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Freshly updated, this contribution to the PCCS Books popular ‘Primer’ series is written by one of the UK’s leading authorities on focusing-oriented counselling. Developed by Eugene Gendlin from Carl Rogers’ pioneering model of person-centred counselling at the University of Chicago Counseling Center in the 1950s, focusing-oriented counselling can be applied to enhance any model of talking therapy. Its primary focus is what the client says, but also, importantly, what they have not yet found the words to express – that is, how we articulate the ‘felt sense’ of our experiences. This revised and extended edition offers a comprehensive but concise description of the history, theory and practice of the approach, how and why it ‘works’, the debates around it, what it brings to the counsellor’s primary mode of practice, and the evidence to support it. This is an invaluable guide and introductory outline both for students and for qualified counsellors seeking to enhance their clients’ therapeutic outcomes.

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The new "Counselling Primer" series from PCCS Books, supplementary to the bestselling "Steps in Counselling" series, is suitable for beginners and higher level students who want a succinct boost to their knowledge of a particular area. "Counselling Primers" bridges the gap between introductory, intermediate and diploma level courses, each book providing a concise overview of a particular counselling approach. The perfect essay resources or a springboard for further study. "The Person-Centred Counselling Primer" by popular author Pete Sanders is the first in the "Counselling Primers" series, comprising 120 pages of essential information in Sanders' approachable and encouraging style. This book presents an unparalleled, comprehensive description of person-centred counselling in the twenty-first century. Personality theory, motivation, therapy theory, non-directivity and the process of change are all covered in Pete Sanders' easy and accessible style. It is written for: students requiring: comprehensive introductory text for initial person-centred training, input for comparative essays and therapeutic approaches on integrative courses, a theory bridge between introductory and certificate/diploma level texts. It is useful for anyone requiring a concise, understandable yet authoritative guide to person-centred counselling theory and practice.

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A lot of what is done in the name of psychotherapy and psychology is driven by motives which are base, shallow and commercial. Theorising of the human condition too often follows the ideological fashions of the day, which can be described as biological/corporate fundamentalism. This toxic mixture not only mystifies the general public but also makes epistemological slaves of professional psychologists. As neo-liberal capitalism continues its forward march, this book considers its influence on the divide between academic psychology and the psychotherapeutic art of healing. This has made the relationship between the practical and academic sides of psychology deeply problematic as well as dishonest. Theodor Itten and Ron Roberts explore these issues from their respective positions on each side of the psychotherapy, academic psychology divide. Calling for a return to a new, authentic and vibrant Politics of Experience, their examination, elaborating the interplay of practice and theory with everyday experience, is both personal and critical and provides an unusual insider perspective on what it means to practice in the present day.

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This book uncovers normative assumptions, practices and discourses as central to the production of difference which manifests as gender and sexual inequality and other forms of disadvantage and discrimination in health and healthcare. The strength of these perspectives is in critiquing the increasing power of biomedical sciences in order to contest the hegemony of unexamined healthcare assumptions that deny difference and thereby sustain inequality. These queer and critical theories trouble neoliberal healthcare economics and biomedical scientific norms that operate in every sphere of healthcare, providing a range of radical tools to destabilise, deconstruct or reimagine binaries, discourses, normative categories or moral ideals prevalent in the pursuit of health.

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This book examines the central role of contexts in understanding psychosis and distress. The contexts in which we all exist, historical, cultural, social, political, economic and interpersonal, shape and give meaning to our lives for good or for bad. Scientific research confirms how contexts of adversity such as trauma, abuse, and racism can lead to psychosis. Thomas argues that if we are to prioritise the role of values and ethics in mental health care we must engage actively with the contexts of patients' lives rather than focus on the endlessly fruitless search for the biological origins of distress and increasingly technological approaches to its management. After careful examination of the problems of psychiatric diagnosis, treatments, scientific models of madness, and neuroscience, Thomas goes on to demonstrate how contextual factors are central to mental distress. He proposes that the opportunities we have through narrative, to talk about our experiences and the contexts in which they are embedded, play a vital role in the task of making sense of our lives, in health, when distressed, or when overwhelmed by psychosis.

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'Our encounters with Madness' is a collection of user, carer and survivor narratives. These are grouped under five themes: On Diagnosis, Stories of Experience, Experiencing the System, On Being a Carer, and Abuse and Survival. The book will be of great benefit to students of mental health, professionals, service users and carers, and to those interested in narrative enquiry and the pedagogy of suffering. Unlike most other books in this genre, the narratives are unmediated. Written by 'experts by experience', there are no professional biomedical of psychotherapeutic commentaries, which often serve to capture and tame, or sanitise, such stories of direct experience.

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"Making and Breaking Children's Lives" examines how children are hurt in modern society. We hear about the effects of early abandonment, abuse and lack of attachment, but find that children's experiences are sanitised through medical diagnoses and frequently the 'help' offered is prescription drugs. In this challenging book a plurality of voices returns to one consistent theme - the importance of psychosocial context, which become increasingly dismissed as being irrelevant in the rush to label and prescribe. However, there is hope - the final section describes inspiring examples of how services and communities can be developed to give children and their families a chance to prosper - evidence that there is nothing inevitable about the breaking of children's lives.

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This book is for anyone who knows, loves, is baffled by, or wants to help someone who is, has been, or is going to be 16. Sixteen is where anything can happen and often does; the eye of the storm of adolescence, filled with demands, challenges, turbulence and passion. This book is written for psychotherapists, but also for parents, teachers and anyone who has an interest in how the teenage mind works. Jeanine Connor draws on her 25 years of experience as a psychotherapist specialising in children and young people to paint vivid vignettes of some of the 16-year-olds she has worked with. These nine stories capture and explore the key themes and challenges in this demanding and rewarding work: sex, gender, identity, body image, self-esteem, depression, loneliness, difference, loss and despair. But also the humour, quirkiness and mercurial charm of her young clients, brought to life through frank dialogue, deft description and quick-fire repartee. And if any reader thinks they recognise themselves in any of the characters portrayed, then the book’s work is done. Anonymised they may be, but these stories will illuminate your understanding of the lives of 16-year-olds today, and maybe your own 16-year-old self as well.

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This collection of chapters casts a critical eye on the concept of coproduction in our national mental health and learning disability services. Is it naive idealism? A one-way road to co-optioning the independent user/survivor movement? A major challenge to the hegemony of the psychiatric profession? The next progressive step in the shift away from medicalised care? Or is it simply unaffordable, unacceptable and unmanageable to policymakers, decision-takers and funding bodies? Contributors from across the mental health arena offer critical analysis and case examples of coproduction in principle and practice. Presented in three parts, the book describes the progression towards and the barriers that block the achievement of coproduction, the challenges it presents to the psychiatric and mental health professions, and finally, examples where progress has been made. The contributions demonstrate how users of services and their carers can be involved as equal partners in shaping the delivery of democratic, ethical, equitable mental health care in secure, acute and community settings.

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In June 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union. The decision plunged the five million EU residents in the UK into a toxic abyss of fear, anger, shock and shame. Suddenly they were ‘citizens of nowhere’ in a country they regarded as home and faced having to move back to their country of origin and start life again, often without their British partners and children. In 2019, a virus born in a little-known Chinese city over-ran the entire world, causing many millions of deaths and bringing national economies and people’s usual ways of life to a standstill. So much of what we took for granted crumbled to ashes as countries locked down and families mourned their dead. In this book, leading existential theorist and practitioner Emmy van Deurzen explores how we handle such existential crises, and how and what we can learn from them to better prepare ourselves psychologically for the future. Inevitably, we will face many more such calamities due to climate breakdown and the consequent international instability, she warns. One of those five million EU citizens, Emmy had to fight for her right to stay. Here she draws on her personal experiences of such crises, the accounts of others and on her extensive clinical, theoretical and research knowledge to argue that such events need not spell the end of life as we know it. Rather, they can open the door to different, richer and more thoughtful, relational ways of being in the world.

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This vibrant new book springs from the continued failure of the counselling and psychotherapy profession to adequately prepare trainees to meet the needs of today’s multi-ethnic, multiracial and multicultural society. The editors, both highly experienced trainers and academics, have gathered together here a group of new and established writers who draw on personal and professional experiences to present an array of fresh ideas and approaches. Their aim is to inform training curricula that would more adequately prepare therapy students to respond sensitively and in culturally appropriate ways to clients of diverse cultural and racial identities. Each chapter presents a challenge to all therapeutic practitioners, whatever their specialist role, to attend to and reflect on their personal and professional attitudes and behaviours in relation to clients of all heritages and origins. Issues addressed include unconscious privilege, ‘othering’, micro-aggressions, broaching, racism, discrimination, the search for meaning, identity complexity, intersectional understanding, heritage, biases and projections, trauma, intergenerational trauma, introjections, projection and decolonisation of the curriculum. This book is a wake-up call to the profession to develop more inclusive models of theory and practice, and to every counsellor, psychotherapist and counselling psychologist to review their professional practice and ensure a better fit between the aspirations and theories of their professional calling and the needs of our multi-ethnic, multiracial and multicultural society today.

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This is a book by practitioners for practitioners. Love, respect and time for listening to children and young people are what the person-centred psychotherapists and psychologists contributing to this volume have in common. They do this in a multiplicity of settings including primary and secondary education, a pupil referral unit, voluntary agencies, adoption services, hospital, hospice, community and the streets. All contributors give examples of their work with particular children and young people, aged from two to eighteen. They all share something of how they embody person-centred theory in their work, often engaging with the systems which impact on their work in the therapy room. They are all imbued with person-centred qualities, values and principles including respect, acceptance, empathy, awareness and self-questioning. All describe how much they have learnt from working with children and young people. The inherent political and systemic aspects of this work are highlighted throughout the book, which we hope will encourage and inspire all those interested in what person-centred practice with children and young people might look and feel like. 'Our own view is that modern childhood is in crisis - which itself perhaps reflects a crisis of adulthood more generally, and the milieus (family, educational, environmental) that we are creating for our children. These crises demand urgent consideration if the toxic juggernaut is to be halted and reversed. This welcome new book shows how person-centred practice can inform this consideration, and we wish it wide readership. The issues it raises and the responses it champions will be an essential aspect of the healthier future that we all wish to forge for children the world over' - Foreword, Richard House and Sue Palmer, November 2007.

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In this title, another distinguished international collection of theorists and practitioners lead the serious student to a cutting-edge appreciation of Unconditional Positive Regard. Once dubbed a 'controversial' condition by Germain Lietaer, and seen by Jerold Bozarth as the 'curative factor' in client-centred therapy, UPR has never before had so much attention focused on it. Readers from all disciplines can discover how contemporary person-centred therapists are thinking about, and working with, this 'core' condition.

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Genuineness, transparency, authenticity and realness are all terms used to convey Rogers' concept of congruence. This book is the first to specifically focus on, and collect critical explorations of, this under under-studied therapeutic condition. Drawing on the work of an international collection of leading writers, serious students of person-centred theory now have writing representing the most vibrant contemporary thinking on congruence thoughtfully drawn together in one volume.

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Part of the PCCS Books bestselling Primers in Counselling series, The Existential Counselling Primer is a concise summary of the philosophical origins of existentialist therapy, existentialist understandings of what it is to be human, and how both inform the theory and practice of existential counselling. It ends with a case study to demonstrate what the approach might look like in practice and includes a helpful glossary of key terms and terminology. The PCCS Books primers offer students concise, accessible descriptions of the key counselling approaches in widespread use today. The series is ideal for students needing texts that provide a bridge between introductory, intermediate and diploma courses or easily digested summaries of the different approaches for comparative essays and integrative theory assignments. The books are perfect supplements to the Steps in Counselling series to accompany students as they progress through training. They are also a helpful for qualified counsellors considering expanding their repertoire of skills. In this revised second edition, Mick Cooper has updated the references to incorporate important additions to the literature and added to some sections to reflect developments in thinking and practice.

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Non-directivity is the distinguishing feature of the revolutionary, anti-authoritarian approach to psychotherapy and human relations developed by Carl Rogers. The book brings together an impressive international collection of person-centered writers, each exploring an important facet of non-directivity as it relates to person-centered theory and practice. Their contributions examine the history, theory, applications, and implications of the non-directive attitude. Non-directivity emerges in these pages as a way of being that remains vital and highly relevant to the practice of person-centered therapy, other person-centered applications, and psychotherapy in general.

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Now in its third edition, this classic text is essential reading. From its origins in the 1960s, person-centred therapy has long resonated. But it has not stood still, and in this book leading proponents in their fields offer succinct and inspiring summaries of their specialist approach, supported with suggestions for further reading and resources.

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`Identity is tied to place. The environment is not the backdrop; it is woven through our identity.’ So writes Chris Rose in her introduction to this insightful collection on the mutually enriching relationship possible between psychogeography and psychotherapy. The book invites an interdisciplinary, reflective and at times poetic exploration of place as an integral feature of personhood, from the sauntering of the 19th century flâneur to today’s urban activism. Chapters range across diverse topics – gendered and embodied response to place and space, home and attachment, map-making, mindfulness in the city, outdoor group analytic therapy, the interplay between our internal and external landscapes, displacement from one country and cityscape to another, and the role of the urban therapist. These ground-breaking chapters offer new insights into our deep-rooted resonance with the landscapes we inhabit and contexts we construct. The book is illustrated throughout with original artwork by urban sketchers.

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This book is the first to focus exclusively on person-centred supervision. The editors explore the practice of supervision in the light of person-centred philosophy and theory, review and critique the generic literature on supervision and then look at some of the issues, questions and dilemmas that arise in supervision. The contributors come from a variety of backgrounds and work in different settings. Editors and contributors share two things: a commitment to person-centred principles in their work, and a wish to extend and expand the range of person-centred practice. This book offers a model of supervision that is consistent with person-centred principles and describes some of the ways in which person-centred practitioners can converse with colleagues from other disciplines and in other areas of work.

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This book is a revised and retitled second edition of A Straight Talking Introduction to Being a Mental Health Service User (2010). This updated second edition offers a cohesive basis for collective change to the individualising and medicalising of ‘mental health’. It draws on the expertise of those with experiential knowledge of the mental health system to review the past, challenge the present and explore how we might fight for a better way of responding to mental crisis and distress that places the service user at the centre.

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This fourth, updated and revised edition of this bestselling classic offers essential guidance to student counsellors and psychotherapists starting out on their training. Most books about training focus on the training; this book is about you, the trainee and student, and your needs. Written by two highly experienced trainers/lecturers, Step in to Study Counselling and Psychotherapy will be your friend and guide across this new terrain. An array of voices from the world of counselling and psychotherapy training also contribute their expertise on the topics discussed. Training in counselling and psychotherapy demands much of the trainee in terms of what you give of yourself to the process, as well as the academic and practice skills required to successfully complete the course. This book will help you choose your course and where to study, fund it, manage your relationships with fellow trainees and teaching staff, prepare for and write/deliver your assignments, negotiate placements and follow your learning through into continuing professional development. It also covers clinical supervision, personal therapy, experiential learning and self-care, and - as a one-stop resource - it provides useful links to other sources of information and support.

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In 2017 the global #MeToo movement burst through the conspiracy of silence around women's experience of sexual abuse and violence. Since then, other groups have found the courage to declare that they too have experienced sexual abuse and are unafraid and unashamed to let it be known. Now this ground-breaking book provides a space for counsellors and psychotherapists - more often the listeners - to tell their own stories, sometimes for the first time. Each chapter is written by a counsellor, psychotherapist or therapy client and followed up with an exploratory dialogue between writer and peer. Together the contributions form a community of #TherapistsToo voices, brought together in the hope that readers within and beyond the counselling and psychotherapy realm will feel less alone and more connected. This is a book for anyone wanting to understand the ubiquity of sexual violence and sexual abuse. It's about how to respond, support, raise awareness, campaign and be part of creating a culture that says #TimesUp!

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We live in a society where people struggle to look death in the eye. Death has become the territory of professionals and we rarely see a dead body, unless it is someone very close to us. Death has become hidden, and so more traumatic. This book shows that, if we start talking openly about death, it can change the way we live. It is a collection of stories and images about death, dying and bereavement. People from all walks of life share their experiences and what they have learned from accompanying others. Heartbreaking, angry, questioning and contradictory - laugh-aloud funny, even - the stories illuminate, inspire, reassure and inform. They are accompanied by commentaries from professionals working in end-of-life planning, health, bereavement and funeral care.

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Learning and Being in Person-Centred Counselling has inspired and guided thousands of counselling students since it was first published in 1999. Tony Merry died in 2004, and this third edition has been updated, with a new chapter on recent developments, by Sheila Haugh, a long-time colleague who knew him and his work well. Learning and Being offers an in-depth exploration of all aspects of person-centred counselling, from its origins to current developments in theory and practice. It is written in clear and accessible language, with exercises and checklists to prompt the reader's own thinking and learning. It brings theory to life with its suggestions for exploring and developing person-centred values, qualities, attitudes and skills. Chapter covers essential aspects of theory and practice, including working at relational depth, training issues and supervision, and a comprehensive resource list of other relevant texts. READERSHIP-Learning and Being in Person-Centred Counselling is recommended for: - certificate and diploma counselling trainees and tutors. - undergraduate psychology students and lecturers. - nurses and social workers in training. - those on vocational and 'helping professions' related courses. - trainees on integrative, cognitive or psychodynamic courses. - people training to work in the voluntary sector. - anyone seeking specialist input on contemporary person-centred theory and practice.

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Since 2008, the government’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme has been rolled out across England and Wales. In the 10 years of its existence it has transformed primary care mental health services and changed the landscape of counselling and psychotherapy across the UK. While IAPT services provide therapy to thousands of people experiencing depression and anxiety, they also absorb millions of pounds in government funding. This has resulted in wholesale cuts to numerous voluntary sector and GP-attached counselling services run by qualified and experienced counsellors and psychotherapists. Current plans to expand the reach of IAPT to 25% of need (NHS Five-Year Forward Plan) rely on an economic model of treatment that has more in common with the principles of Henry Ford than with those of either Rogers or Freud. This book, with chapters written by experienced therapists, psychiatrists and academics, unravels and exposes the neoliberal roots from which the IAPT programme sprang. It scrutinises the tightly regulated, manualised and medicalised therapies offered in IAPT, the constant surveillance under which its practitioners work and the dehumanising effects of this on clients and therapists alike. It also offers an in-depth cost-benefit analysis of IAPT’s published outcomes, challenging the well-publicised claim that IAPT pays for itself by cutting the national welfare benefits bill and returning depressed and anxious people to work. Meanwhile, with therapists working on performance-rated, short-term and self-employed contracts, often in professional isolation with inadequate management and supervision support, the book exposes the difficulties, frustrations and hardships experienced by those on the front line of mental health services. Together, the contributors question whether and to what extent the IAPT `factory’ system of care, driven by psychiatric diagnosis, fast through-put and quick-win `outcomes’, can really provide a solution to Britain’s growing mental health crisis.

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The ethos of existential therapy is that practitioners seek to co-create a therapeutic alliance with clients that emphasises being with rather than doing to. Trainees and practitioners alike are therefore eager to have access to accounts of what senior practitioners do in their day-to-day practice. Also, it is rare that books both show the reader what the therapist does and explicitly relate this to cutting-edge thinking in theory. Case Studies in Existential Therapy is designed to address both these gaps by providing, through the medium of the case study, a platform for leading practitioners in the existential therapy community to show how they are applying their own innovations in theory to enrich their practice. Each of the contributors describes a specific innovation in theory, and then brings this to life in an account of their engagement with a specific client. Every chapter concludes with a `Question and Answer’ section in which the author reflects on the significance of their work in dialogue with the editor. This is a book both for students of therapy and for the experienced practitioner keen to expand their repertoire. It will also be of interest to the psychologically minded general public.

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Increasingly, counsellors and psychotherapists are working with people who have been diagnosed with a mental disorder and are required to understand and navigate the mental health system. Counselling training rarely covers the fields of psychiatry and mental disorder in detail and there are few reliable resources on which they can draw. This comprehensive guide to psychiatry and the mental health system, written by a psychiatrist and counsellor, aims to fill that gap. The book is intended for counsellors and psychotherapists but will be helpful to others in the mental health field. It explains the organisation and delivery of mental health services in the UK, the theories and concepts underpinning the practice of psychiatry, the medical model of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, the main forms of mental disorder, how to work therapeutically with people with a diagnosed mental disorder and how to work with risk of suicide and self-harm. The text is designed to support continuing professional development and training and includes activities, points for learning/discussion and comprehensive references.

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Every child is born with innate wisdom; the role of adults - parents, educators, social workers and policy makers - is to nurture this wisdom and enable it to flourish. This is the belief that underpins this extraordinary book. Barbara and Heather Williams have drawn on the work of Carl Rogers, Virginia Axline and other leading person-centered theorists and educationalists to devise unique ways to foster the innate wisdom of children. 'Children have the ability to trust, to express themselves in a clear, straight way, to be empathetic and open to differences in themselves and other cultures and to accept other people and themselves for who they are and not for what they do or do not do. When a child can recognize and express these qualities it helps them to be insightful, to have high self-confidence, to be creative and to be resilient. When the wisdom of children is not recognized and they cannot express person-centered qualities, their self-confidence goes down, they lose trust, they are fearful and they often either give up or rebel.The educational and medical systems are quick to diagnose them with ADHD, bipolar disorder and other labels and quick to medicate them, when much of this medication could be avoided,' they write. The book is in four main parts.It starts with the founding of DeSillio School, in Fort Collins, Colorado, and tells how teachers, parents and the community worked together to support the wisdom of children and help them to learn in creative ways through using and bringing out their person-centred qualities.It goes on to discuss play therapy, and the use of the person-centered approach with children from age two through adolescence, drawing on case examples, experiences and quotes from children. The third section discusses Native American Indian philosophy and how it informs the Williams' work in education and the workshops they run world-wide with children. Part four focuses on these Kids Workshops and the training programs Barbara and Heather have created to help children recognize and express their wisdom, be resilient, keep their creativity and appreciate nature. The book ends with a series of 'what if?' questions: what if politicians, educationalists, economists, parents, teachers, therapists, foster care and children's centers could all recognize the wisdom of children?How could it change the world? Immeasurably, if we allow Barbara and Heather's experience to guide us.

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First published in 2005 as Person-Centred Psychopathology, and now extensively updated and with a new title, The Handbook of Person-Centred Therapy and Mental Health challenges the use of psychiatric diagnoses and makes a powerful case for the effectiveness of person-centred approaches as the alternative way to work with people who would otherwise be diagnosed with severe mental illnesses, such as psychosis, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. This updated second edition captures the significant changes in recent years in how mental health and ill health is conceptualised and understood, and in how mental health care is delivered. It demonstrates how the person-centred approach can help occupy the space that is opening up as mental health professionals look for alternatives to the medical model. And, while acknowledging the chasm that separates person-centred practice from the mainstream medical model, it argues for collaborative working with these fellow mental health professionals. Contributors from across the fields of research, policy-making and practice explore aspects of theory, professionalism, the role of culture, and the politics of the person-centred approach in relation to mental health.They demonstrate how Rogers' theories of personality and the actualising process are able to provide a model of human functioning that is relevant not just to counselling but to all mental health professions, and beyond, to the social sciences. They give examples of how the person-centred approach is being applied successfully in practice (and successfully evaluated). They offer personal testament to the challenges and creative dynamics of working in a person-centred way within mainstream contexts, and they review the vibrant political and professional divisions and arguments that continue to inform thinking and practice today. New chapters examine the influence of the national Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme in England, and how researchers are successfully overcoming the challenge of evaluating the effectiveness of person-centred approaches to severe mental distress.

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This hard-hitting, impeccably referenced book draws on academic theories and analyses of power and the author's personal experience both as client and practitioner to critique power within the psychotherapeutic relationship and within the organisations where therapy takes place. Accessible, political and severely critical of her own profession, Proctor provides an essential reminder to student, practitioner and researcher of the imperative to remain always mindful of the values and ethics of justice and responsibility. In this revised second edition, Gillian Proctor extends her discussion to the more recent challenges presented by the IAPT programme.

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This book is an essential resource for anyone who has a supporting role or relationship with someone who hurts themself, whether in a professional or informal context. It is also a useful resource for people who self-injure, to help them to explore their experiences and to keep themselves safe. Based on interviews with people who self-injure and frontline practitioners and service managers who work with them, it explores why people self-injure, debunks myths and misconceptions about self-injury, explains self-injury in the contexts of human embodiment and a social model approach to distress and illness, and offers practical strategies for responding in meaningful ways, including using creative practices and harm-reduction. A final chapter offers guidance on how to write a harm-reduction policy for self-injury that can be used across any health, education and social services setting. This is an essential book that promotes better understanding and thus better responses to self-injury, brought to life with the words of people with first-hand experience of self-injury, for whom it is, or has been, an important coping mechanism.The book closes with a short account of Zest, a voluntary sector organisation in Northern Ireland, whose success with people who self-injure demonstrates what the guidance in this book looks like when put into practice, and that it really does work.

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Andrea Koch argues that the person-centered approach is one of the best ways of being with dreams because it has no limiting concepts of dreaming or the meaning dreams bring with them. The client's sense of her inner world is at the center of the counselling process and gives primacy to the actualizing tendency. This allows for two ground rules for being with dreams: the dreamer finds her own meaning and dreaming is a process of self-healing.

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Person-Centred and Experiential Therapies Work provides a comprehensive, systematic and accessible review of the evidence-base for the approach and the methods and measures by which it can be evaluated. It gives clear evidence for the effectiveness of person-centred and experiential therapies, and is an essential resource for students and practitioners who want to know more about the empirical support for their work, and to promote it with confidence.

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Revised and updated edition of this body psychotherapy classic, Reichain Growth Work sets out to convey the essential features of Reichian Therapy in concrete and easily understandable language. The style of body therapy which it describes is democratic, growth-oriented and undogmatic, while still committed to Reich's radical description of human beings and their difficulties. This book is for people who want to change; because only by changing, profoundly painful as that sometimes is, can we stay alive and growing.

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This series presents unparalleled, comprehensive descriptions of key counselling approaches in the twenty-first century. It is ideal for students requiring a theory bridge between introductory, intermediate and diploma courses or focused input for comparative essays and integrative theory assignments. Individual volumes are perfect supplements to the "Steps in Counselling" series as students progress in their training. "The Psychodynamic Counselling Primer" sets new standards as a succinct guide to psychodynamic theory and practice for everyone wanting an authoritative synopsis.

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Developed by Garry Prouty and his associates over a period of 30 years, Pre-Therapy is a method for anyone wanting to work with people whose ability to establish and maintain psychological contact is imparied temporarily or permanently, by illness or injury, whether organic or psychological in origin. This book presents the most complete and up-to-date formulation of Pre-Therapy philosophy, theory and practice. Applications of the method with the most difficult client groups - those described with severe psychosis and others with profound learning disabilites - are illustrated by all three authors, with detailed accounts from Dion Van Werde and Marlis Portner. Pre-Therapy has changed the practice of psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, social workers, counsellors and carers in mainland Europe; now this book introduces its revolutionary ideas to English-speaking readers.

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It is widely acknowledged that research is an essential component of the counselling and psychotherapy core curriculum. Therapists and all care practitioners not only need to be able to understand and evaluate research literature, but are also increasingly expected to carry out simple practitioner research to monitor their own practice. With its emphasis on practice-based evidence, this book provides a much-needed, reliable and accessible introduction by two trusted and well-known authors. It builds confidence by not only outlining contemporary methodologies in everyday language, but also by explaining how to approach, understand and evaluate a range of published research. Written for complete beginners in the tried and tested, best-selling style of the other books in the "Steps" series, the book covers first principles through to the development of a simple research project. In simple terms "First Steps in Practitioner Research" provides a 'how to understand and do it' resource for students, tutors and practice supervisors with little or no previous experience.

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The new "Counselling Primer" series from PCCS Books, supplementary to the bestselling "Steps in Counselling" series, is suitable for beginners and higher level students who want a succinct boost to their knowledge of a particular area. Beginners will find the style companionable and reassuring, while more advanced readers will appreciate the incisive and authoritative writing with pointers for further reading and resources. Trainers will find the series a dependable learning aid. "Counselling Primers" bridge the gap between introductory, intermediate and diploma level courses, each book providing a concise overview of a particular counselling approach. Each "Counselling Primer" will be a perfect essay resource or a springboard for further study. This book presents an unparalleled, comprehensive introduction to integrative counselling with a person-centred foundation in the twenty-first century. Worsley presents the principled application of the non-formulaic use of self and experience in the service of the client.This book is for students requiring: comprehensive introductory text for initial integratively-oriented training; input for comparative essays and therapeutic approaches on integrative courses; and, a theory bridge between introductory and certificate/diploma level texts. Anyone requiring a concise, understandable yet authoritative guide to the principles of integrative (rather than eclectic) counselling theory and practice based on a foundation of person-centred therapy - the preferred approach of many thousands of counsellors.

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The 'Our Encounters with - ' series collect together unnmediated, unsanitised narratives by service-users, past service-users and carers. These stories of direct experience will be of great benefit to those interested in narrative enquiry, and to those studying and practising in the field of mental health. This collection brings together a range of voices on the theme of self-harm - from those who have experienced self-harm directly, alongside the friends, family and staff who live and work with self-harm. Too often, our understanding of the unique and complex experiences of people who self-harm is limited to concepts of mental illness, disorder and disease. Yet these stories demonstrate the strength, survival and recovery of people with rich and diverse lives. Inspiring, hopeful and at times challenging to read, the contributors who have so generously shared their experiences in this book will promote understanding and compassion, improve attitudes and care, and offer hope to those who are personally encountering self-harm.In this respect, this book is of immense value to all those working with self-harm across a spectrum of services and roles, and to those living with self-harm.

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This book contests how both society and Mental Health Services conceptualise and respond to madness. Despite sustained criticisms from academia, survivor groups and practitioners, the bio-genetic model of madness prevails and therefore shapes our very notions of what madness is, who the mad are and how to respond. This dominant yet narrow view, at the heart of the psychiatric system, is misinformed and misleading as well as fraught with tensions between the provision of care and the function of social control. How and why does this system continue? What can be done to change it? Encompassing both academic analysis and practical application, Madness Contested brings together nurses, service-users, psychiatrists, psychologists, practitioners, and academics who promote alternative ways to understand and approach madness. Their contributions debate questions such as: What are the processes and forms of power involved in the current system? What interests are at play in maintaining dominant theories and practices? What are the alternative conceptualizations of madness? Can practice incorporate openness, modesty and a desire for equality? The perspectives are broad yet complimentary.Contributors include Peter Beresford, Mary Boyle, John Cromby, Jacqui Dillon, Dave Harper, Eleanor Longden, Midlands Psychology group, Joanna Moncrieff, David Pilgrim, Phil Thomas and Jan Wallcraft.

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A basic trust in the individual is at the heart of the person-centred approach. This trust is reflected in the radical ethical stance of non-directivity and in the theoretical construct of the actualising tendency. In this companion volume to his well-received Embracing Non-Directivity, Brian Levitt once again brings together an impressive international collection of person-centred writers. The actualising tendency serves here as a catalyst for a diverse and thought-provoking collection of essays, each reflecting on various aspects of human potential within the context of person-centred theory and practice. These essays, while shedding further light on the person-centred approach, also build bridges to the emerging discipline of positive psychology.

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This powerful and disturbing book draws direct comparisons between the plight and fates of African slaves, dehumanised and discarded to sanitise Britain's trade in human lives and imperial ambitions, and the systemic 'othering' of people designated 'mad' throughout Western history. Drawing on contemporary historical records, Barham recounts, often in their own words, the stories of black people incarcerated in Kingston, Jamaica's lunatic asylum, poor white women similarly ejected into the British psychiatric system in the early 20th century for failing to live up to class and gender norms, and most shockingly, black men who have died at the hands of the police and mental health nurses in state custody and psychiatric detention. Endemic racism, greed, cruelty, exploitation and social control are writ large across this account that demands to be read by all those concerned for human rights, mad rights, Black lives and truth-telling about Britain's shameful colonial past and racist present.

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Conventional therapeutic psychology suggest that we are essentially self-creating and able (with a little help from a therapist) to heal ourselves of the emotional ills that beset us. This kind of view reflects the wishful thinking and make-believe that are necessary for the success of modern consumer capitalism, but it does not reflect the way things are. The alternative set out here, based on the author's many years' experience of practice as a clinical psychologist, offers a language and a set of concepts that enable us to understand ourselves as real, embodied beings in an equally real world that resists mere wishfulness. Our experience of ourselves, as well as much of our conduct, are accounted for in terms of the social operations of power and interest - and a framework is established for making sense of our emotional distress as the outcome of environmental pressures. David Smail argues that to take ourselves seriously as social beings, embodied in a real world over which as individuals we have very little influence, is by no means grounds for despair. Rather, it encourages modesty, appreciation of good fortune, compassion and recognition of our common humanity.

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Modern life is tough on young people and their mental health is suffering. Psychotherapist Jeanine Connor turns her focus to this generation in another series of vivid portraits of what goes on behind the doors of her therapy room. These therapeutic snapshots bring to life the theories pioneered by Freud and make compulsive reading.

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Global heating, catastrophic climate change and the growing reality of ecosystem damage and accelerated species extinction hang over us all. For the counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, coaches and their supervisors who make up the talking therapy professions, these topics are increasingly coming up in their work. They must deal both with their clients' and communities' emotions and responses - their fear, anger, denial, grief, helplessness and hopelessness - and with their own. The chapters in this thought-provoking, honest, moving and sobering book explore the frameworks, theoretical constructs and ways of working they have devised to hold hope and build agency in the face of all this complexity, uncertainty and injustice. Contributors from a range of cultural backgrounds and professional disciplines discuss our inter-relationships with the natural world, indigenous practices and understandings, acknowledging our betrayal of our children and young people, how to go on practising at the edge of despair, staying well in unwell times, 'rewilding' hope, deep adaptation coaching and much more.

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